Brad, Angie & Jen: The Fake News Game

Source

Screen Door, 2005

"When Elvis decorated Graceland in 1968 the original door was removed and put into storage. In 1999 it was sold, along with his bible, his Walther PPK handgun, his Texaco credit card, and other Presley ephemera, at an auction at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. When I saw the image of the screen door, of an absolutely ubiquitous type all over over North America, I wanted to do something with it. I finally decided to make it into a very large piece of jewelry."
-Rodney Graham

Remade Images

Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" might be read as a rumination on love, memory, and the obsessive desire to recreate or regain the lost image. In the film, this recovery is always incomplete and ultimately, melancholic. For example, Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) is obsessed with an image of a long dead woman named Carlotta Valdez. Although Madeline cannot recall her long periods viewing the painting in the Legion of Honor Museum, she remakes herself in Carlotta's image, eventually committing suicide, like Carlotta, at the tender age of 26. Later, love sick detective John "Scottie" Ferguson attempts to convince brown-haired Judy (also Novak), who resembles Madeleine, to dress and act like the now deceased Mrs. Elster. This, too, ends in tragedy. In search of these lost moments and memories Madeleine, and then Scottie, drift aimlessly through Hitchcock's San Francisco.

Thanks to the internet, unprecedented access to the artifacts and history of pop culture is now readily available. I have observed within these informal communities a tendency to revisit and recreate seminal shared moments from their respective fictions*. Like Madeline and Scottie, these fans partially regain a moment lost only to lose it again.

The San Francisco locales Hitchcock used for filming Vertigo are shared here and "before and after" images of the sites can be found here. As a fan of Vertigo myself, I am fascinated by these images and I also long to revisit these scenes. What would happen if a reproduction of the Carlotta painting was hung in the Legion of Honor's gallery today? I imagine it would extend Vertigo's narrative into lived time (Madeline was here sixty years ago), a blurring of factual and fictional experience already underway in the mind of a fan (fanatic). Of course, alone in the gallery we can already imagine Madeline's presence: perhaps the painting is simply in storage.

Mark Frost and David Lynch's early 90's television drama/mystery Twin Peaks also recreated elements from Vertigo. Specifically, Frost/Lynch twinned the female lead, having Sheryl Lee play both blond-haired Laura Palmer and brown-haired Madeline Ferguson, Laura's cousin. In the final episodes of the show's first season, Madeline remakes herself into the image of Laura in order to manipulate a love sick man.

Also like Vertigo, Twin Peaks has developed a cult following, despite its short two season run on TV nearly twenty years ago. Fan sites like intwinpeaks.com and twinpeaksprops.blogspot.com continue to locate and meticulously recreate aspects of the show. It seems they (and I) are still obsessed with Twin Peaks' mystery, perhaps spurred on by the unresolved "cliff hanger" of its final episode. Like Vertigo, the murder is solved, but the mystery is not diminished.


*For a more detailed account of an example of this trend, see ‘Star Trek’ Fans Put Kirk’s Command Chair in Their Homes from a recent issue of the New York Times.

The Most Library Books I Have Ever Taken Out

My Stanley Kubrick Fetish

I tend to get fixated on certain pop culture figures. One of my perennial fixations is Stanley Kubrick.

I think my obsession stems from the transcendental designation of "genius" that is so often applied to Kubrick and his work. This concept inspires me to get obsessive compulsive. In turn, this compulsion leads me to spend exorbitant amounts of money on the latest reissue/remaster/never-before-seen whatnot. Oh, the strange combination of guilt and exhilaration that infuses these purchases! I am ashamed to say that I might have a fetish for all things Kubrick.

For this reason, it is very comforting when I find others who are similarly fixated. Here are links to a few of them.

Citizen Kubrick by Jon Ronson
Article by journalist, author, and This American Life "personality" Jon Ronson. It describes Ronson's search through the archive of material in Stanley Kubrick's estate. This material has since been catalouged, shipped, and exhibited worldwide. I especially enjoy Ronson's attention to detail and the final revelation that ends his article: Kubrick's "Rosebud" is both a specific object and a general tendency. This seeming paradox reminds me of something from Zizek.

Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory by Leonard F. Wheat
An amazon.com listing for a book by Leonard F. Wheat that I just might purchase. I came across Wheat in the first bloom of my Kubrick obsession and, for me, he exemplifies the real dangers of such myopic fixation. Conspiracy theory as film analysis.

Fresh Insights into 2001: A Space Odyssey by Leonard F. Wheat
An online article in which Wheat responds to his critics and further develops his ideas. I aspire to one day make a work like Wheat's.

The Stanley Kubrick Archives by Alison Castle
The bible for Kubrick fetishists. On amazon it's only forty dollars (marked down from seventy)! Should I or shouldn't I?

The Quiet Life

Living in New York City can make one pine for the quiet life. Here's a quote from artist Robert Irwin, who spent 8 months completely alone in Ibiza when he was in his mid-20's:

"It was a tremendously painful thing to do, especially in the beginning. It's like in the everyday world, you're just plugged into all the possibilities. Every time you get bored, you plug yourself in somewhere: you call somebody up, you pick up a magazine, a book, you go to a movie, anything. And all of that becomes your identity, the way in which you're alive. You identify yourself in terms of all that. Well, what was happening to me as I was on my way to Ibiza was that I was pulling all those plugs out, one at a time: books, language, social contacts. And what happens at a certain point as you get down to the last plugs, it's like the Zen thing of having no ego: it becomes scary, it's like maybe you're going to lose yourself. And boredom then becomes extremely painful. You really are bored and alone and vulnerable in the sense of having no outside supports in terms of your own being. But when you get them all pulled out, a little period goes by, and then it's absolutely serene, it's terrific. It just becomes really pleasant, because you're out, you're all the way out."

Quoted from this amazing book

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston's persona bridges fact and fiction: she plays the same character for the tabloids as she does in her newest RomCom...an adult woman who emotionally has not outgrown adolescence. And yet, she is constantly on the verge of adulthood, usually via pregnancy, marriage, or new love. Her slightly above-average looks, conservative wardrobe and type-cast roles (girl next door) help us identify with her and pity her. Thus, her film roles differ as little as possible to maintain the brand.


Aniston's passage to adulthood has frequently been the implicit subject of her films. I can personally recommend each of the following Aniston "coming of age" tales...


Rumor Has It...
Jennifer Aniston portrays Sarah Huttinger, whose return home with her ho-hum fiance convinces her that the sedate, proper, country-club lifestyle of her family isn't for her, and that maybe the Huttinger family isn't even hers. Join Sarah as she uncovers secrets that suggest the Huttingers are neither sedate nor proper - was "The Graduate" really based on her family? Better to the ask someone who was there: the real Benjamin Braddock. Sarah wants the truth, but is she ready to turn her life upside-down for love?


The Object Of My Affection
George and Nina (Aniston) seem like the perfect couple. They share a cozy Brooklyn apartment, a taste for tuna casserole dinners, and a devotion to ballroom dancing. There's only one hitch: George is gay. And when Nina announces she's pregnant and in love with George, things get especially complicated. Vince - Nina's overbearing boyfriend and the baby's father - demands marriage. Nina wants independence. George likes a little unqualified affection, but is he ready to become an unwed surrogate dad?


Picture Perfect
Kate (Aniston) has a life that is hardly picture perfect. Alone in the big city, she is working on a career at Mercer Advertising, but she is passed up for promotion after promotion because she's "not stable enough" - she's still single! To get ahead she says she is engaged to Nick, a guy whom she just met at a friends' wedding. Suddenly everything's going right for Kate, she even gets the attention of a sexy co-worker. But now she has to face the truth: she's in love.


Aniston's arrested development has also been compelling for a majority of the film audience. According to Box Office Mojo her films have grossed a total of $901,621,023.

Marlene Streeruwitz on Rosemarie Trockel

"The glance at a work of art generally passes by the work of art and lands upon its creator. With the reproach of measuring itself against the creator, the glance passes through the work of art and rests upon the artist as defendant and accused. In this reproach of presumption, every beholder can set himself - or herself - up as the defender of a creative principle. Every beholder becomes a judge, a representative of authority. All beholders can, just for an instant, wrest themselves free of their own death sentence by condemning another. Escape damnation through condemnation. Pursue their own salvation for the instants of dismissal of another. It feels powerful to say "No, I do not like that", "No, that did not work at all", "No, there is nothing in it". There is always selection, elimination, marking to be transported away. Committee member for the compilation of proscription lists. In the end, always come back to the judges themselves. The condemnation of the other always culminates in one's own death sentence. Does not suspend it. It engulfs itself. Aids and abets the Patriarch, who desires this engulfing, and who may not permit the creation of a new language of observation, in which everything may be said. Friendly words too. Comprehensible words. Compassionate words. Questioning words. The result could be friendly anarchy."

Thanks, Douglas.

20/20

Van Dyke Parks on the ABC-TV miniseries, The Beach Boys: An American Family...

As for Dennis, Parks offers one telling anecdote. "That movie showed Dennis Wilson cowering in front of Charles Manson!" says Parks. "Well, I'll tell you what really happened. One day, Charles Manson brought a bullet out and showed it to Dennis, who asked, 'What's this?' And Manson replied, 'It's a bullet. Every time you look at it, I want you to think how nice it is your kids are still safe.' Well, Dennis grabbed Manson by the head and threw him to the ground and began pummeling him until Charlie said, 'Ouch!' He beat the living shit out of him. 'How dare you!' was Dennis' reaction. Charlie Manson was weeping openly in front of a lot of hip people. I heard about it, but I wasn't there. The point is, though, Dennis Wilson wasn't afraid of anybody! Dennis was a total alpha male -- something Mike Love wants to be but isn't."

Many are aware of The Beach Boys' connection to Charlie Manson...this is a thorough sum up. To make a long story short: Dennis Wilson and Charlie were friends (...I guess that's what you'd call it?) and lived together for awhile with the rest of the Family. Dennis ended up reworking one of Charlie's original songs (Cease To Exist) and got it released as a B-Side to a Beach Boys' single. The track, Never Learn Not To Love (live YouTube version below), was reissued on the Beach Boys' 1969 album 20/20. Most serious Beach Boys commentators tend to dismiss Never Learn Not To Love, but I think Dennis did an excellent job of revamping Manson's composition for commercial release.

Cease to resist, come and say you love me
Give up your world, come on an' be with me

(I'm your kind I'm your kind) and I see
Come one come on
Ooh I love you pretty girl
My life is yours
And you can have my world

(I'm your kind I'm your kind) and I see
Never had a lesson, I ever learned
But now I know I could never learn not to love you
Come in, now closer, come in, closer
Closer, closer, oh

Submission is a gift, give it to your lover
Love and understandin', is for one another

(I'm your kind I'm your kind) and I see
Never had a lesson, I ever learned
But I know I could never learn not to love you
Come in, now closer, come in, closer
Come in, closer, oh (ahh... ahh...)

As you can see, Dennis' version of the lyrics are effective in conveying their pathologically narcissistic message (note the mixture of clear, commanding language with purposely confusing 60's sloganeering) while still resembling the love song form. In this way, the song's message is ostensibly transcendental, but it is also suicidal: once you cease to resist the song's speaker, you cease to exist.

The music is just as relentless. The 20/20 version begins with an ominous, swelling sound wash that launches into the song's melody without pause. From there, the song's arrangement continually builds as the chord progression, too, climbs ever higher (not unlike the Beach Boy's 1966 single God Only Knows). The arrangement is appropriately dense, mixing a pounding drum kit, tambourines and sleigh bells with the Boys' overpowering vocals and celebratory lines from horns and flutes. The final fadeout features wordless harmonizing, perhaps symbolizing the absorption of the "pretty girl" by the song's speaker.

As if to reinforce the song's transcendental pretensions, the next track on 20/20 is Our Hymn, Brian's intended opening for SMiLE, his "teenage symphony to God." Our Hymn is a beautiful, wordless, acapella chant. The formal similarities between Our Hymn and the ending of Never Learn Not To Love mask a profound ideological conflict.

I highly recommend 20/20.

On Records

Lately I have been thinking about records, like, the actual vinyl.

For instance, the records I've got (some of them are more than forty years old), seem to hold the secrets of some Rock n' Roll myth...like, did Willie Nelson really release a song called "I Gotta Get Drunk"?

They are surprisingly mute.

I sometimes imagine them as a cross section of some larger whole, slim slices taken out of a large, black tree. Or the vinyl disc is a dark universe, songs held in orbit by the emptiness of the circular spindle hole, a black hole. What would happen if I found the original specimen, growing in some damp basement? Or if I illuminated all that dark matter...?

Records are a circular version of Kubrick's monolith.

Because record sides are circular they have no Up nor Down. The grooves and labels provide some kind of orientation, sure, but their system is, ultimately, arbitrary. I can hold it any way I want.

A similar ambiguity appears when listening to an album all the way through...what do you do when Side One ends? How long should I wait to flip to Side Two? Is this an intermission? An avant-garde stunt? A pregnant pause? It can go on for a long time...

And how to regard these sides? There are usually two, according to the documentation, but what of the non-grooved side that completes the record's cylindrical form? Because it is circular, this "third side" can be understood as both a single continuous side and infinitely sided.

Records will make a good relic.

Why is "The Drift" so frightening?

"I'm looking for a good cowboy..."

Over the course of the past year, whilst away from my blog, I have been listening to Scott Walker's 2006 album "The Drift." Good God, why is this album so frightening?

Well...I'd say because it "drifts" in several ways. For this post, let me limit myself to a couple of formal observations: the recording drifts between representational and "real" sounds, humor and horror, music and noise.

So, we drift between representational and "real" sounds. This technique brings the album's horrors suddenly, and unbearably, closer. For instance, a lyric that describes public mutilation is complemented by the distinctive sound of bare hands slapping raw meat. Another song's refrain of "I'll punch a donkey on the streets of Galway!" follows a donkey braying in time with the music. Later, a half-sung "Bam Bam Bam Bam" becomes four knocks on an unseen door...

This weaving of "real" sounds within compositions makes those "knocks" both musical and theatrical. In simpler terms, the "real" sounds are both part of the musical work and part of the listener's world (Wait...did someone just knock on the door?). This effect blurs the Real and Art. So, like, the horror oozes out of your stereo speakers and onto your living room carpet.

Um...cool?

Oh yeah, Donald Duck also makes a cameo. Donald's performance exemplifies the album's startling balance of humor and horror (think: Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man). For another example, take a line from "Jesse" -- "Six feet of fetus/flung at sparrows in the sky" sings Walker.

Like, whoa. Like, really?

At first, I thought Walker was putting me on. It was all so over-the-top, it was hilarious. After a couple more listens, though, I realized he wasn't kidding. He really wants to talk about flinging fetuses.

Jesus.

And you should really hear the way Walker delivers that line.

If you're familiar with Walker's earlier work, you know he has a beautiful baritone voice, deep and smooth. But on this album he doesn't sing melodies as much as he chants the words, with attention paid to enunciation, texture, and rhythm. In this way, Walker's voice is no longer the focal point of the music, but instead, just another means to communicate a mood. The lyrics, too, provide no stable narrative nor conceptual progression. More often than not they are descriptive fragments, half-finished conversations, esoteric proper nouns, nonsense or onomatopoeia.

Finally, there's the "blocks" of arranged sound that Walker uses to keep the listener off-guard. Arrangements change suddenly, instruments jump into the mix and then drop out seconds later. There are very few smooth transitions, and very few easily recognizable instruments or arrangements (no guitar solos!). So, you know, be prepared to be totally unprepared.

These musical details demonstrate Walker's subversion of traditional musical structure and hierarchy. Indeed, it is sometimes hard to tell whether this is Music or Noise.

And, for me, all these effects are encapsulated neatly by the concept of Drift. We drift between representation and reality, humor and horror, music and noise, meaning and chaos. Pretentious, I know, but the music never ceases to be moving...and frightening.

"I'm looking for a good cowboy..."

You know, now that I think about it, we could meaningfully compare Walker's work to the Coen brothers' "No Country For Old Men" which also subverts genre expectations to get at the chaotic and violent reality of existence.

Just a thought.

Happy Listening!

Comparing Internet Art to Art Since 1960

Now that I’m in school mode again I’ve been studying up on my art history. I’ve gone back to basics, returning to the Thames & Hudson “World of Art” series to try and get a broader understanding of recent art practices. I really like the no nonsense format of these Thames & Hudson books; the short length and survey style tends to reel in the art theory hyperbole and get to the point. For example, Michael Archer’s one paragraph sum-up (no diagrams!) of Rosalind Krauss’s “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” on pgs. 96 - 97 of Art Since 1960 is breathtaking. Way to go, dude!

In Art Since 1960 this brevity keeps things moving and gives the reader a real sense of progression through a period of art history usually viewed as hopelessly complicated. Personally, I found it really refreshing to get a linear narrative of recent art, without all the “end of history/postmodernism” talk that usually muddies the waters of contemporary art history. I mean, a pretty convincing linear narrative can be constructed from the past 40 years of art making. For instance, although Sherrie Levine’s photos might signal the theoretical “death of originality,” her work wouldn’t have been possible without the photo/text conceptualism of the 70’s. Like, although history or our experience of reality isn’t objective, the (North American/European) art world’s characterizations of “art” have unfolded in a well-documented and somewhat coherent manner, right? Blasphemy!!!

Anyways, in my reading I also went through Rachel Greene’s Internet Art, a survey of the past 15 years of online creativity. It’s pretty good, although kinda pretentious. Like where Art Since 1960 covered 40 years of massive change in 200 or so pages, Internet Art covers its 15 years in the same space. This creates some awkward equivalencies between the two texts, like when you compare (the excellent) Alighiero e Boetti’s name check in Art Since 1960 to the pages upon pages devoted to net artist Heath Bunting or the similar amounts of space devoted to Michael Fried’s brilliant “Art and Objecthood” and Wayne Bremser’s jokey essay on the similarities between Cremaster 3 and the video game Donkey Kong. These discrepancies might point towards a lack of critical perspective in Greene’s text, the “emerging” nature of internet art and its short list of quality work and criticism, and/or a need to fill out this Thames & Hudson book to the standard length. Whatever the reason, the brevity and clear trajectory achieved by Archer in Art Since 1960 is not present in Internet Art.

Nevertheless, Internet Art is an interesting read and made me see my usual concerns (What’s art? What’s innovative?) in a new light. Like, although there is no question that many of the projects in Internet Art are innovative, I took issue with people classifying some of these works as art. For example, in the last chapter entitled “Art for Networks” Greene outlines several works which are freely distributed visual maps documenting relationships between powerful institutions (financial, religious, political, etc.). Greene (via Brian Holmes) classifies the projects as art because they anticipate the eventual dismantling of these relationships through activism and “tactical media” (181-182). In this case, Greene assumes viewers will use the maps for the “good” (i.e. the destruction of capitalism) even though this information is also now available to more conservative concerns including the target institutions themselves (who are, no doubt, also online). I don’t want to get into an argument about the paradoxes of political activism here, but I do think that when work is classified as art its form better live up to its stated intentions.

And why do we have drag “art” into this argument anyway? I have no problem calling this work interesting and exciting activism, “tactical media,” whatever, but it doesn’t seem like art to me. Maybe it’s a readymade, but that’s the best I’ve got. I mean, why don’t the "artists" call this stuff political activism? Why consign it to the nebulous and politically neutered realm of “energy potential[s]” and “signs pointing to a territory that cannot yet be fully signified” (182)?

I’d track this misunderstanding back to online art’s (mis)reading of artists like Hans Haake and Marcel Duchamp, but whatever. I suspect it also has something to do with the money and institutionalized separation the art world bestows (“I can be pretty abnormal without having to isolatedly receive society’s contempt or punishments.” – Lucas Samaras), but whatever. In the end, I think my rejection of “art” works like these is due to my hesitation to jettison names like Picasso, DeKooning, and Nauman (all absent from Internet Art’s index) from our understanding of contemporary art. But, let’s face it, when Thames & Hudson says it’s art, it’s art. So, face your destiny and read these books. Like I said, they’re pretty good.

This blog entry can also be found on the myartspace blog, right here.

Luv 4 Richard Serra

I think the Richard Serra retrospective at MoMA is a good opportunity to talk about phenomenological art and how it changed our understanding of what art could be. I say it's a good opportunity because Serra is one of the best and because I don’t think people sufficiently appreciate the new aesthetic experiences made available in the late 60’s. People, there is more to the late 60’s than conceptual art!

To recap: as we’ve been told (over and over again), in the 1960’s people asked the big questions and really changed things around socially, culturally, politically, etc. Artistically, the 60’s were no different, with "post-minimal" artists like Bruce Nauman, Eva Hesse and, our hero, Richard Serra questioning and gradually disassembling modernism’s assumptions (using Jasper Johns as a guide). Judging by the sampling of his early work in the MoMA show Serra asked several timely questions, including: "Is it art if I use industrial materials instead of artistic ones? Is it sculpture if it is placed directly on the floor or hung on the wall? Is it sculpture if it shows the process of its making?" Of course, these questions are banal now (today the early work is difficult to understand without knowledge of what sculpture was circa 1965), but trust me: at the time they were significant. And trust me, this questioning lead to something significant, as well.

And this is where I think the misunderstanding happens. Because I know what you’re thinking: “All this questioning lead to conceptual art and the diffusion of the aesthetic experience into theory, language, and context,” you say, “Boring!” And while that is partially true, the late 60’s also introduced something called “phenomenology” (or “theatricality”) as an art experience. Basically, phenomenological art focused on giving the viewer a physical or bodily experience more than an intellectual or visual one. So instead of losing yourself in an image of a landscape or pondering a jargon-filled text, phenomenological art made you feel with your body, and often the experience was immediate, unexpected, and overwhelming. And identifying this latent aspect of art (a painting is an image and, also, a physical object) was more or less innovative! For example, while Anthony Caro’s sculpture might not move you, Serra’s "One Ton Prop (House of Cards)" would definitely move you…the hell out of the gallery before the huge steel slabs fell on your ass!!! And while these “Prop” works may not be as threatening today (behind glass partitions at the MoMA they’re history, not sculpture), back in the late 60’s in some rundown loft they were (reportedly) pretty badass.


At the MoMA retrospective one can discern how, over the course of his career, Serra has continued to develop more physical experiences for the viewer, while also incorporating context and image to greater or lesser degrees. So, not only are these works physically rich, but they are visually and intellectually rich as well. However, the emphasis remains on the viewer’s physical experience of the objects. I mean, just try not to feel while walking through his Torqued Ellipses or the newer work on show in the MoMA’s contemporary galleries on the 2nd floor. I double dog dare you.

Now that you’ve lost that dare, observe all the other visitors experiencing, exploring, and (holy shit) enjoying Serra’s Ellipses. No prior knowledge is needed, no museum copy is required: this is great art. So, I say unto you, contemporary artists, claim the bounty that is yours! Reconsider your understanding of late 60’s art and embrace the phenomenological! And the next time you find yourself in the presence of contemporary art, notice: does it make you feel before you think? For contemporary art is often flooded with words, theories, and strategies but often lacking in feeling.

This blog entry can also be found on the myartspace blog, right here.

Lisa Yuskavage's Issues

Recently, I saw Lisa Yuskavage talk about her work. She said she needed to make art to live. Like, or else she'd be miserable. Miserable or dead. (She didn't really say that, but what the hell.) I guess she needs to express herself. She talked about her time in therapy (a lot), something I haven't heard at other artist's talks I've been to. She used words like "transference" and showed slides of (a few of the many) portrait paintings she's done of her shrink. She is an accomplished painter, but perhaps her artistic conversation is mostly with herself. Like, she uses the language of painting to navigate her own issues. I am not particularly interested in her psychology, even though she seems like an ok person. A lot of her friends came to her talk and cheered her on from the front row. It was strange. I mean, she's been famous for years now, how much more encouragement does one need? And with talk like this how the hell did she get so famous? (i.e. the talk I saw was sponsored by the Public Art Fund)

I mean, looking at her paintings I imagine there's been some fruitful discussion of gender, sex, desire, other stuff. But I'm not sure there's been as fruitful a discussion of art. But perhaps that's why her works are so popular: they're relevant, topical, accessible. Conversation starters. And besides, oil painting is in these days, and John Currin is in. But as far as being avant-garde...

She said some of the usual stuff about color, its symbolic and visual effects. She talked about figurative images and narrative in painting, which was interesting, I'll admit. And I guess we could talk about low content (porn) in high culture (oil painting) and the similarities between classic figurative painting and classic 70's pornography (see Warhol). And I do like this painting I put up of hers. It reminds me of the way Picasso used to deconstruct women's bodies, only this time there are hints of cosmetic surgery, anorexia, prostitution.

But I guess I'm not so interested. I've said it before (I think) and I'll say it again, I love the avant-garde (i.e. questioning and expanding the boundaries of art) and I'm not into work that's mostly topical (i.e. the artist's emotions/psychology, sociology, gender studies, etc.). I am into art because I like to talk (mostly) about the field of art, not other stuff. So, what I'd really like to know is how is Yuskavage's work relevant to the field of contemporary art? I mean, from the talk I saw it seems like she's not even sure. She just does it because she has to.

This blog entry can also be found on the myartspace blog, right here.

Art Pranks

Ever since Duchamp made a comeback/got recycled in the 50's seems like everyone wants to be an artist prankster. You don't got to paint well, you don't have to sit in a studio all day, you just got to be a good performer and dedicated to your schtick. I always find them funny and I'm always interested, maybe because I find them more accessible but still thought provoking. like, while I may not understand the implications of the color wheel, I understand Sean Landers' 18 minute rant about himself and his sublime talent, like, he's being ironic, dude. HA! you can see similar stuff from Martin Creed, and the granddaddy of contemporary pranksters, Maurizio Cattelan, whom I love the most because he's the best at it (see: Pope gets hit by meteorite). There's also usually at least one (white male) artist prankster in every MFA program. I will probably fill that slot when I go to school next fall. Yipee!

I actually went to see martin creed when he played with his band owada on the lower east side recently. It was alright, but I haven't really thought about it so much, even though I reportedly love artist pranksters. a lot of it was funny and showed how experiencing conceptual art can be emotional, entertaining, and sensual and not just dry and intellectual. like some of the songs' lyrics were sort of conceptual/philosophical, but also funny and the music rocked real simple good. So you got the brain and the body involved. sort of like Built To Spill, only with less rawk. some of it also played with expectations of rock concerts, like, instead of doing the usual "hello cleveland!!!" martin creed stood alone in the spotlight and was very thoughtful and candid in his remarks. there was also the deconstruction of the "stage" (lights & fog going on and off randomly, the stage hands playing a prominent part in the show) but even that was pretty engaging. So, ok. in the words of john cage, I guess "I have nothing to say and I am saying it." The best part was going to the after-party and watching Maurizio Cattelan and Martin Creed chat it up. I imagine they talked about how fucking hilarious they both are.

recently I also read this great biography on the original prankster Duchamp called The Bachelor Stripped Bare. It did a great job of telling Duchamp's story clearly and concisely, because while there's tons of literature on Duchamp, a lot of it is nonsense (I'm looking at you Arturo Schwarz). The book is full of biographical details that are often obscured, like Duchamp being a lonely dude who endlessly tried to create controversy and scrape a little money together. Like when I read Cabanne's Dialouges with Duchamp I was inspired by a Duchamp that made iconoclastic, innovative work and happily floated through life. Apparently it was much more complicated and sad than that. Like, he was in love with his sister. Yuk yuk yuck. But the book isn't all revelations. I think some of the discussions of the work are a little superficial and the author seems a little too eager to dismiss the art of the past 40 years. I did like the ending, though, which just kind of left us with the bizarre image of the Etant Donnes, Duchamp's secret final work. I find this work to still be troubling in its suggestion of sexual violence against women. Ha ha?

This blog entry can also be found on the myartspace blog, right here.

Banksy: Activism or Art?

Responding to a recent comment on my blog, I thought I might talk a little bit about Banksy, who does seem to be pretty popular these days.

Banksy (his official website with many images) is a contemporary artist/activist who “defaces” various contexts or objects, creating elaborate graffiti works in urban landscapes, secretly placing unauthorized artworks into exhibitions, or reconfiguring kitschy store bought paintings (see Tim Hawkinson's earlier works). Like many graffiti artists, Banksy’s identity is a secret, ostensibly to protect him from prosecution or jail time, although it’s known that he’s a white male (I think). In his work, Banksy repurposes popular icons or images, employs a direct, illustrative style, and gives his images the theatrical effect of actually existing in the viewer’s space. And while his subversion of popular culture (culture jamming) isn't so new (1989 - Adbusters first published), his creation of large-scale stenciled graffiti seems somewhat innovative in graffiti history (as far as I know…). And Banksy's use of photography and the media to disseminate his images around the world (not unlike Maurizio Cattelan, et. al.) is interesting. A longer, better biography is available (as usual) at Wikipedia.


Now, for me, I find Banksy's work kind of confusing. Because if I think about it as art, I'm bored. But, if I think about it as activism or culture jamming, it's pretty good. Strange, right? I think this goes back to beliefs about art that inform my criticisms. Like, I think "good art" is an innovative play of forms (visual, conceptual, social, etc.). In this way I think art can discover things and doesn't have to illustrate things we already know. Like, if Banksy puts an inflatable detainment camp prisoner in Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride (ha! See above), he's using site specificity (70's art) and a collage of visual icons (Hannah Hoch's dada collage) to talk about American insularity in a time of war. And that's a fine topic to draw attention to. But I think art can be more than just drawing attention to popular issues through familiar art techniques. Like, I think art can anticipate or identify issues we're not even aware of yet...

But, for a moment, I'll compare Banksy with my idea of good art: an innovative play of forms. Well, his work doesn’t really make use innovative materials (seen any new media graffiti recently?) or use its site(s) in a very sophisticated manner (whoa, it’s like the angel’s actually IN the doorway!). And, often, the content is a little thin, since he attacks big, easy targets (Paris Hilton, Disneyland, the London Zoo) and prefers explicit images (Worry, don’t be happy). Like, what can I say about art that wants to critique Paris Hilton?

So, let's consider it activism, like, take his work on the Israeli West Bank barrier. His work there appealed to our basic humanity and/or our love of basic clichés (i.e. walls should be knocked down…), and simplified a conflict in which the West’s interventions are already controversial (do Palestinians really need Banksy’s opinion/intervention, too?). But at least he was willing to make a stand and put his ideas out there, get feedback, and get it all on the BBC. And while the work may not be breathtakingly insightful, it probably incited more dialogue and coverage for an unacceptable situation. And that seems pretty good to me (not that anyone cares what I think...).

So, in the end, I see what Banksy does as a kind of activism, a vague definition: drawing attention to issues through artistic techniques. But I don't think it's great art. But Guernica, that's great art...right?

This blog entry can also be found on the myartspace blog, right here.

What Is Interdisciplinary Art?

You're probably familiar with the term "interdisciplinary," perhaps you came across it tucked away in the small print of your college handbook. Well, in the art world, it's been tossed around since the 1960's (the era of the interdisciplinary academic boom!) but how it actually applies to Art is still a little murky. Today I'd like to casually/rigorously define the term "interdisciplinary" in an art context to clear up any confusion. Because there is, I think, some confusion. Let me summarize my argument first and then I'll blab about the specifics:

In the past, artists have often used an "interdisciplinary" approach to innovate in art. The disciplines these artists integrated into the field of art include both academic and vernacular subjects or processes. However, the current definition of "interdisciplinary art" refers to a specific kind of work also called "Institutional Critique." In this work artists use techniques derived from other academic fields, techniques that remain non-artistic and are not integrated into the field of art. Instead of expanding the field of Art, current "interdisciplinary art" reinforces its boundaries, contradicting historical "interdisciplinary" practices.

(If that last paragraph was confusing, don't worry, read on for the long explanation...)

Ok, the blabbing:

To begin, let's define that vague term "interdisciplinary." I'll say it's a way of working that uses knowledge from multiple fields to solve a problem. For example, if you apply interesting stuff from science and math to innovate in art, that could be called interdisciplinary art making. But while the idea of being "interdisciplinary" has become recently popular, the idea is nothing new. Interdisciplinary work has always happened, and different fields have always communicated and shared ideas. The difference now is that we've named it, institutionalized it, and made it possible to get paid (poorly) to be a professor in it. But, generally, folks with knowledge of several fields can get ahead by applying the cutting edge of one field to another field.

Our concept of the "avant-garde" and the following definition of an interdisciplinary approach are similar, since both (usually) integrate new ideas or technologies into a field. There are many art examples of interdisciplinary approaches: there were the first art photographers ("A photograph as art!? That's not art, it's engineering!"), Marcel Duchamp reading up on scientific discoveries and employing their procedures in his absurd experiments, and just try to imagine Surrealism without Freud ("I don't get it...why a hot dog chasing a donut?"). There are contemporary examples as well, such as Bruce Nauman's academic love of literature and music. In all cases, these artists expanded the definition of art to include their interests in other academic fields, making their approaches to art "interdisciplinary."

However, many times artists have integrated ideas from vernacular culture instead of from an academic field. This integration still follows our "interdisciplinary" model, but substitutes Pop for Academia. Warhol, for example, took his personal interests in business and Elizabeth Taylor and integrated them into the field of Art. Picasso, too, integrated his love of "low" or vernacular visual culture (newspapers, African art sold in Pawn Shops) into Art. The list goes on and on.

But, here is the problem: recent uses of the term "interdisciplinary art" can refer to a specific kind of art making termed "Institutional Critique" (see Fred Wilson, Hans Haake). "Institutional Critique" critically addresses the site or context it is shown in and often reveals institutions' ambivalence or hidden intentions. Take this description of UCLA's graduate program concentration in "Interdisciplinary Studio":

"The Interdisciplinary Studio specialization combines directed research and studio practice within a context which aims to provide students with a critical forum for exploring site- and debate-specific forms of institutional critique. The specialization encourages inter-area projects which involve the theoretical procedures or material processes of other academic disciplines." (from http://www.art.ucla.edu/graduate/areas.html)

A bit dense, I know, but they're using the term "interdisciplinary" to refer to the non-artistic research that usually goes into the process of creating such a work. So, in this case, their practice of academic research is not integrated into the field of art, but instead remains firmly part of another discipline.

Speaking literally, this "interdisciplinary" approach does not expand or question the limits of art, because we are immediately informed of where the field of Art ends and where the fields of research begin. Ironically, this artistic approach is the result of an "interdisciplinary" questioning of boundaries, and the hard won integration of contemporary activism into the field of art.

Such a contradiction hints at the conservative nature of such practices, and their limitations as "political" art. Artists continuing to use the "Institutional Critique" model should address this contradiction, now that the initial shock of such practices has worn off. For starters, if they are artists, why is their research considered academic and not artistic?

At the very least, this kind of work should not dominate or direct our discussion of the "interdisciplinary." Duchamp, Picasso and Warhol are way better than Wilson.

This blog entry can also be found on myartspace, found here.

Critical Decadence

As "Institutional Critique" becomes art history, it seems emerging artists are rejecting the dry, serious tone of the past for a materialist, anti-academic attitude that emphasizes the spectacle or consumption of art over autonomous ideas or objects. Using pornography, Fluff™, and quotations from recent art history and pop culture, this decadent practice eschews any direct criticism of the discipline of art.

However, by overemphasizing materiality or spectacle, some artists still manage to get in a little critique. For example, at a recent event entitled “Iron Artist”, artists created work head-to-head while attendant curators wrote essays in front of a panel of judges and a live audience. The event was not only entertaining, but emphasized the conspicuous consumption of a contemporary art world that is producing more art, essays, and money than ever before.

Work being produced now also brings to mind several precedents. The first is Pop Art (early 60's), where artists used "high culture" media to depict consumer ("low") culture. However, these days, the medium of oil paint is no longer necessary to make these monstrosities recognizable as art. Second, current art brings to mind other decadent styles, like Otto Dix and Max Beckmann’s “Verist” paintings made during World War I. Both styles were produced during a cultural climate of war and consumption. I would like to see an Assume Vivid Astro Focus or Paper Rad work and an Otto Dix side by side.

Finally, the decadent work of today could be read as a reaction against the professional atmosphere of the art world. With the legacy of conceptual art and graduate schooled artists and curators overwhelming the art world, the current dialogue has become decidedly academic. Therefore, to subvert this trend, artists are using the sensuality of materials and the spectacle to appeal to an audience beyond the academies.

Cory Arcangel

as a new media guy, I think it's time I formulated an opinion on Cory Arcangel, who is the bee's knees now as far as net art, new media, performance, etc. he just put up a new show in chelsea (smart review here), and I saw his work being shown at PS:1 this summer alongside warhol, roni horn, felix gonzalez-torres and other heavy hitters. In that context, I was like "C'mon!" Because deep in my heart I guess I am both jealous and suspicious of him. like, I think of an idea and surprise he's done it and now the whitney owns it. Oedipal complex ho! Even though he's like 19 or something.

If you don't know his work check out these linx:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/soa/dmc/cory_arcangel/

http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/

Basically, he is a pop culture conceptual artist. he uses pop content/forms and rearranges them using various ideas. for examples, he re-edits guns n' roses videos, re-edits super mario bros. nintendo cartridges, re-edits dvd's to make them "static" wall projections to be shown in a gallery. he also does performance like committing public friendster suicide. finally, he has on-line works like "calculating the center of all the starbucks on the island of manhattan". so, usually his works can be summed up pretty well in language and they're not overpowering forms, like, what you hear is what you get: "oh, it's like a re-edited guns n' roses video". beauty doesn't often enter the equation: it's not about looking it's about thinking. and even with his performances, he's just a talking head. so, there's little sensuality.

and since it's conceptual art, basically, it's also still got that critical edge, review from artforum: "...Arcangel’s talent: looking carefully into the media we so thoughtlessly digest for information that rides below the radar. Of course, cultural theory does the same thing, but drily, and there is something more logical about consuming it Arcangel’s way—it offers a pleasure akin to the original, uncomplicated pleasure, a perfect mimetic moment."

at first I thought this sum up was pretty right on: he's a cultural theorist who makes the viewer do all the work (what does it mean that he looped a guns n' roses video?). but if you look closely he's not too critical. I mean, he chooses pop criticisms: "like, wow, Starbucks are everywhere, that's like bad, man." nothing a liberal arts education/socialization didn't already teach you. (If you want real cultural theory as art see mike kelley !!! I *heart* mike kelley!!! Mike kelley, do you *heart* me?)

and not everyone even gets his pseudo-criticism of media, it's just another media consumption set-up (cool! videogame junk! and he's so funny and cute!). and it seems like he wants people to consume his art (instead of NBC or FOX 5 art), and wants people to come to his parties (instead of boring, critical art lectures).

talking about his parties, he's part of a "scene" of nyc new media people (that You can be a part of!), the players of which are summed up in this on-line show and in the photos link below it:

http://www.thousandsofcolors.com/2006/06/my_friends_electric.html

http://www.twhid.com/photos/summer_of_html/

it's all sort of similar pseudo-critical media art. and you can have a good time! whee.

so, anyway, I guess I don't find arcangel's work all that compelling as Art objects. cause I'm all about being "critical" and "innovative". for me, as objects, the most interesting part of arcangel's work is when he brings unrecognized styles or forms into art, i.e. the aesthetics of super mario bros., 80's mtv, or video games as art. and he debases conceptual art in a very humorous way (although Mike Kelley debases it way better). but I guess my problem is, he doesn't seem to make any real important art objects with his new ideas.

of course, besides being art objects, a lot of arcangel's work has a real interesting context as research into how various technologies do or don't work. as art-research, this stuff seems awesome. but I guess new media art has a history of being esoteric that arcangel wants to get away from. that's too bad because personally, I find this "other" artistic investigation he's got going on much more unique and interesting than arcangel's digital critique of concept and performance art.

Conceptual Art and the Internet

Recently, I have been thinking about the internet and all its webpages and how this stuff functions like conceptual art (i.e. the guy I talked about last time, Sol LeWitt). That maybe somehow we’re still making assumptions about how language can produce form perfectly.
I mean, if you think about a webpage, it's very similar to Sol LeWitt's idea of a form making machine: the webmaster uses language (html) to create a set of directions that a real machine then follows to create a form (the webpage you see on your computer). But mistakes or misunderstandings still take place, even when html language becomes visual form. For example, depending on your browser, operating system, computer monitor, etc. the html code will be interpreted differently and may result in a fucked up (unintentional) version of the webpage. And again, even though the translation from language to form isn't Perfect, it gets the point across. Like, we all more or less have similar experiences on the internet just like LeWitt's work looks more or less the same (no real weird interpretations of his directions). But, remember, we’re all seeing a slightly different visual form of the same language. Like, we’re reading a translation of html.

Beyond webpages, I think the obsessive communities on the internet sometimes also unconsciously form themselves into form making machines. like, there is/was a virtual community that formed on the internet around the Beach Boys' unfinished 1966-67 album "Smile". And the “idea of Smile” ended up getting carried out by a music making machine: the fans. They took all the bootlegs and edited them and mixed them and completed Smile! And now the final form of “Smile” is polyphonic, multiple, there are hundreds of versions out there.

The Great Trouble with Art in This Country

The great trouble with art in this country at present [...] is that there is no spirit of revolt - no new ideas appearing among the younger artists. They are following along the paths beaten out by their predecessors, trying to do better what their predecessors have already done. In art there is no such thing as perfection. And a creative lull occurs always when artists of a period are satisfied to pick up a predecessor's work where he dropped it and attempt to continue what he was doing. When on the other hand you pick up something from an earlier period and adapt it to your own work an approach can be creative. The result is not new; but it is new insomuch as it is a different approach.

Art is produced by a sucession of individuals expressing themselves; it is not a question of progress. Progress is merely an enormous pretension on our part. There was no progress for example in Corot over Phidias. And ["formal"] or ["conceptual"] is merely a fashionable form of talking - today. It is no problem: [a conceptual art work] may not look at all ["conceptual"] in 50 years.

[In the 1970's] life among the artists in New York was quite different - much more congenial than it has been during these last few years. Among the artists there was much more cohesion - much closer fellowship, much less oppurtunism. The whole spirit was much different. There was quite a bit of activity, but it was limited to a relatively small group and nothing was done very publicly. Publicity always takes something away. And the great advantage in that earlier period was that the art of the time was labratory work; now it is diluted for public consumption.

Excerpted from an interview with Marcel Duchamp in 1946. Words in brackets designate deletions and additions of phrases by me.

Thoughts On Sol Lewitt

I would call some conceptual art some kind of continuation of modernism. Like, while it's avant-garde or whatever, it also tries to simplify Art to some essence, in this case, language. (Same with structuralist film making, but that's a whole other deal.)

As an example, let's think about Sol LeWitt real quick. He writes directions that people follow to create sculptures or wall paintings. LeWitt says the directions function like a machine to create the artwork, like, tell the art computer to make something and there it is, the same every time. However, due to misunderstandings that occur when using language (ever screw something up even though you're following directions?) LeWitt doesn't let just anybody carry out his instructions. If you want a (real) Sol LeWitt artwork you have to hire special assistants from his studio. The fact that you have to hire special assistants is not common knowledge.

So what? Well, it proves it's impossible to perfectly break down a physical object into a system of symbols (i.e. language cannot perfectly describe visual form). Like, you can have the clearest language possible for how to make a wall painting, but the directions are still ambiguous and open to interpretation, so you have to train people how to understand the directions. I mean, language on paper and paint on a wall are different mediums, right? And how could one ever hope to perfectly describe the other?

That said, LeWitt's art still gets made, looks good on walls and consistently has the same style. So, he must be communicating something. But I think the relationship between his language and their visual forms is more complex than he lets on (and he knows it!): they are not perfect descriptions of each other. because of this, I am inclined to think of LeWitt's work as an absurd critique of modernism and the reductivist, essentialist desire of some modernist artmaking. (In this way, the dialogue between modernism & LeWitt is very similar to a philosophical dialogue: Wittgenstein's critique of the Logical Positivists in his Philosophical Investigations of 1953. I would need another blog entry to explain this, so for now I'll just let this hang there and be Provocative.)

JODI talk @ EAI Intermix

Going back to the quick blog style for this one. Wednesday night talk by netart/new media artists JODI at Electronic Arts Intermix in Chelsea. Another contentious new media talk!!! in case you've forgotten, I love new media because it seems like it hasn't been completely co-opted by the art world.

JODI happens to be a husband/wife team from Holland with a bunch of cute kids. They showed videos of max payne 2, with cheats creating strange effects, playing the game to deconstruct the game, sort of.

Then the curator came up to ask questions but the husband was sort of "unprofessional" (in the Guggenheim sense of the word) and insisted on JODI's artistic intent ("We wanted to do something that was non-aesthetically ours...an abstraction within the aesthetic of a game which is already set.", quote from the EAI website) and not the readings the curator and the (in-crowd) audience wanted to heap on it.

the curator seemed to get annoyed by JODI's kids running around, disrupting the talk, and by the husband turning up the sound for some of the videos running in the background, disrupting the talk. he had a sense of humor, a lot of the other people in the room did not. Art Is Serious, apparently. I thoroughly enjoyed his disruptions of this slick curatorial co-opting of new media.

and I don't feel the curator really considered what JODI was Actually Doing or Interested In. And its quite general: "We wanted to do something that was non-aesthetically ours...an abstraction within the aesthetic of a game which is already set." JODI said it doesn't even have to be Max Payne 2, either, the decision was almost arbitrary. and I think that's interesting!!! it's an artistic technique, not a static artwork, and there are many different frameworks to deconstruct...

but the curator wanted to talk about what using Max Payne 2 could mean (U.S.A. ultra-violence?) and the audience for this work (art computer nerds know it already, art pedestrians need tons of context. uh, what about legions of teenagers?) and couldn't accept a simple answer. if you're not interested in what the artists are interested in, just say so, curator.

William Wegman talk @ Brooklyn Museum

"Cotto," 1970. Black and white photograph; 10 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches

will wegman came to give a talk to staff at the brooklyn museum where I work.........his early work seems very much of the time it was made, conceptual/postminimal work of the 70's incorporating a lot of different "untraditional" (at the time) media: photos, video, "bad" drawings. one photo, "cotto", created in 1970 was very reminscent of Bruce Nauman's late 60's portfolio of photoworks, like basically the same idea: visual puns. with nauman there's also a language pun going on (look at the color photo called "Eating My Words" and you can sort of see, (disregard the book title), that he's putting jam on whitebread slices that spell out "WORDS". notice nauman's red/white shirt pattern vs. the red/white table cloth pattern, the red jam, white milk.).

anyway. then wegman said some beautiful things about his dogs, like they wanted to work, that they were bored just sitting around the house, like humans. all beings want a purpose, I guess, and this attitude would sort of explain his almost obsessive humanizing (?) of his dogs. later on, he showed some current (?) postcard works where he'd put postcards on canvas and then imagined how the horizon line continued out of the frames, how different postcard images could interact beyond their frames. these works were more formal than his early conceptual work but also, just as playful/thoughtful. maybe a happy medium. he seemed like a shyguy and little defensive about his work, maybe cause he's gotten so much shit about the dogs. he said he gets letters from people whose dogs have died etc. I guess the price you pay for being in the public eye.

Net Aesthetics 2.0 @ Electronic Arts Intermix

Wolfgang Staehle, Cory Arcangel, Michael Bell-Smith and Marisa Olson in conversation with curators Michael Connor and Caitlin Jones..

I loved this panel discussion!!! a coupla young curators and 4 "web" artists who all didn't always agree with eachother all the time and weren't very articulate and a sort of frustrated audience who still didn't understand what netart is. it was exciting in this way, no-one could really agree what net art is, where it goes, etc. although there were a few pat answers.

wolfgang staehle said some beautiful things. he talked about how his work (webcasts of real places in real time) used the virtual to help us more fully envision the real. while the other 3 net artists were fully engaged in the formal language of the 'net, and spend hours hunched over their keyboards worried about the "14 year old dutch kid" who was going to make something way more awesome than them. observations about internet "folk art" were interesting. one artist had found a totally sweet video made out of video game sprites with Michael Jackson destroying things with his moonwalk. that video was sort of better than a lot of the official art.

the curators were interesting. there was one who was british or something and his questions were long and rambling but interesting statements on net art. not really questions just what he thought. sort of unprofessional, I guess, but much more interesting and thought provoking than the guggenheim curators' observation that the theme of nostalagia is present in their work. so, like, an unprofessional messy curator vs. a professional boring curator. "talk about this and how it relates to your art..." anyway, I loved how contentious this all was. even the professional curators started to look annoyed. FUN!!!!

breaking and entering @ pacewildenstein

Jon Haddock, Screenshots, 2000

Installation view 2, from Left to Right:

Paper Rad
Gifs vs. Sprites, 2005

Radical Software Group
How to Play Warcraft [RSG-WOW], 2005

Cory Arcangel
MIG 29 Soviet Fighter Plane and Clouds, 2005

a videogame show, how the formal vocab and medium of videogames finds its way into art these days. sort of a lame theme. I thought Screenshots was a strong piece, a grid of images in The Sims style, famous images from films, news, stories, all sort of equalized by this looking down video game view & pixels. made me think of how all images equalize their content, they are all images. someone has said that before, and better than I. (this is another instance where Time Out New York got it wrong. they wrongly stated that it was all atrocity images, making it a "political" work of art. but there are images from the Sound of Music and Mary Poppins in there as well Martin Luther King Jr. getting shot!) the http://www.paperrad.org piece was totally sweet and baroque and headachey and overstimulating and came down to a really simple idea: GIFS vs. Sprites. so gifs are the animated internet images while sprites are used in old Nintendo and computer games (Wolfenstein 3-D, for instance). I don't know what it all means necessarily but I liked ducking down into this completely postered, cramped space and watching 2 crazy musik videos..funn. Other work was conceptually lite (all the video games online about osama bin laden) and/or visually underwhelming (floating elvises, random video projections). cory arcangel, who I'm interested in, had some work up, I liked the meditative clouds better than the war images he did this time. although this played with his old clouds, war clouds now. he exhibited a found work of video game art. a new readymade. I like how cory arcangel has a physical presence in the netart/videogameart universe, he gives performances on art garfunkel and is very charismatic, cutesy, funny. he's pretty smart, too, manipulating the nyc art crowd's need to be entertained, who cares if its art or not, he's entertaining. and I don't think he does it in a cynical way, but his artwork is mostly consumable. look at it for a minute throw it away. like the internet in general. adding to the noise.

roxy paine @ james cohan

ROXY PAINE Unexplained Object, 2005 Canvas, stainless steel, electronics, pneumatic cylinders, valves, geiger counter 96 X 96 X 96 inches

I like WOW exhibits. I like exhibits like amusement parks, where its about experiencing, being with objects that are unique, new media, flashy and awe inspiring like a rollercoaster can be. I'm not saying this CORRECT or whatever, but I enjoy going to them, maybe it is a guilty pleasure??? So that's why I go see roxy paine shows.



I think his old Painting Machine is a very beautiful and exciting work of art. the paintings (see above) it makes are very beautiful and engage with robert ryman (post-minimal) as well as jason martin's (contemporary) work in a meaningful way, whatever. this show had more interesting machines, a sandstone sculpting machine loaded with arbitrary stats (the average shoesize in china) that translated into geographical formations on the sandstone (time out new york wrongly wrote that all the factoids had to do with weather, the environment, blah blah, making it a work about our changing environment. this is the second time I've seen them get the facts wrong with a work of art, also in the breaking & entering show. and both times its distorting the facts to give a pat 4 word meaning/explanation to sell it...but I digress...). also the Unxplained Object was a larger than life size sculpture pushing pistons constantly reforming a canvas bag (robert morris & more post-min art). in this case the data that formed the sculpture came from a geiger counter, i.e. how many radioactive particles were in the air. so, in one case, its arbitrary data creating a pseudo-geological form and in another its specific data mutating an arbitrary form (i.e. what is the system that dictates how the pistons push related to the geiger counter reading?). I feel I have seen several of these flashy, new-media, kinetic sculptures around that have some sort of conceptual framework around them, engage with systems (i.e. tim hawkinson's work). sometimes I think they should just make one big kinetic sculpture and then throw all the concepts they want at it. I don't really know if this "Unexplained Object" is reacting to radioactive particles or the average show size in China. its all storytelling to me. at least with the painting machine its about formal decisions, which are somehow less arbitrary. anyway fun show, and I know I didn't talk about his reallife sculptures of gardens and his "ruined planet" sculptures or whatever (maybe TONY is right, he's an enviromentalist) and how biological systems operate similar to computer systems. bye!